baby, r u n --

“Theres no way you’re the adultier adult. You’re too short.” Scarlett joked, laughing maybe a little too hard at her own joke. She didn’t think height really correlated with how much of an adult you were, but at the same time, if someone was taller, she thought they were wiser. It was weird, but it was a thing. “Oh shit, that’s right. I always forget you’re the hotel princess. You hide it so well.” 

“Wait what?” She never really paid much attention to Daniel. Always a little peeved that he’d married her friend and her friendship with Veronica had changed, and for that, she’d always hate the man. “Ex-Wife?” She had flashes in her vision, trying to actually recollect what  he’s actually been talking about, “when did you two get divorced?” She asked, not hearing it from Veronica, so maybe it wasn’t true? But why would he lie about that. “Leather. None of the others matter.” Clearly, she had something she had to teach Veronica. “Who cares about the Vegan community? Honestly.” 

He made no sense to her. It was obvious that she wasn’t okay with his lack of concern, hell all she wanted was for someone to at least listen to her. If he would have given her some sort of acknowledgement, and it would have been different. She didn’t even know how she was here. Well-- she did. The brunette was always starved for attention, and a warm body was good enough, but it never was. “Yeah.” The girl rolled her eyes, looking down at her food before picking her phone back up, she wasn’t even hungry anymore. 

“Local to somewhere.” She repeated him. She’d always been told people who looked Asian were smart, it was a stereotype, but she’d always believed it, now however, she didn’t think it was real. “I don’t know how people do that. Listen to the same thing over and over until they hate it practically. It’s a good way to ruin something.” 

“What’s wrong with that book?” She looked at what was in the brunette’s hands, but she wasn’t really looking at it, she didn’t care about it, when did she ever? She almost regretted coming here. She wanted a cookbook, and nose in her phone, ended up wandering down this aisle, it was a mistake, but it served her right for not paying attention, per usual. “And you’re tearing shit out of it?” Scarlett shook her head, “they’re gonna make you pay for that.” 

“Nah, it just means you have a ghost writer.” Scarlett grinned at the blonde, “it’s perfectly fine, people do it all the time.” She shrugged, not really thinking anything of it. “Please don’t burn my house down.” The girl laughed, “that would be tragic, I’ve only been living there in six months, it’d kill me. And my insurance adjuster would never believe it was an accident.” The brunette droned on, though none of it was even important. “Same ol’ same ol’, you know? Nothing new ever happens to me it seems like.” 

“Who wants to step out of the shower, and step on cold tile?” She questioned, but didn’t give him any time to answer, “no one. Absolutely no one.” She replied for him, because to her, it was a no brainer. “Well, there were tile that would work, but didn’t match. I’m probably going to have to get a tile that doesn’t match, and get a rug.” She sighed, “which is tragic, because why do you need a bathrug when you have heated floors?” She shrugged, “absolutely no one.” 

“It’s tacky to eat a candy cane after Christmas, let’s be honest here.” And the fact that the girl admitted that it was three months old? That was disgusting, and Scarlett wasn’t even pretending to say it wasn’t. “You do know, if you want something peppermint, you could always like, eat a York like a normal person?” Maybe it was just her, but she didn’t think so. It was weird by anyone’s standards. “No. I don’t care about candy canes?” 

“You paid someone to help you with that?” Scarlett looked over at the girl, practically appalled, “you should definitely fire them.” She hated people who didn’t do their job, or when people thought said person was in fact going their job when they weren’t. “Oof, don’t thank me, I’m not trying to help you.” She said, disinterested, she didn’t help people, or at least she did everything in her power to avoid helping people. “Clearly someone just needs to tell you that it’s shit.” 

          Perhaps it was a bad sign that Scarlett’s house had become so familiar to him, or perhaps he was just overthinking something so simple. They were friends; they had been friends long before they had embarked on their little tryst, and now the only thing that had changed between them was that they had seen each other naked. Sex didn’t always have to complicate matters, and when two people were as different as they were, sex was just used as a way of comfort — or distraction. Suddenly, all previous thoughts escaped him as he watched her cross the room towards him, her hazel hues connecting with his own as she grasped the brown paper packet. “Oh baby, you say the sweetest things.” Nick emphasized jokingly, taking a step back as Scarlett surpassed him to make her way into the kitchen, shrugging off the black leather jacket that fit him securely around the shoulders and draped it over the back of the couch.

          He couldn’t help but laugh at her comment, giving his head a brief shake in response as he followed her, watching as she displayed the food across the granite countertop. “You’re telling me you’re not going to share?” Nick questioned, raising his brow in the brunette’s direction. “I guess I won’t stick around for dessert then.” It was a teasing notion, of course, if he really had any intention of leaving he would’ve done so the moment she had tenderly kissed him in thanks for his surprise delivery. But lately, it was becoming harder for him to leave when he knew he really should.

It was almost like the moment Nick walked in her house, her mood shifted. Was she still gonna be bitchy about it? Yes. If there was anything the brunette was, she was a bitch. That was clean cut, and simple. But he took the edge off, and that’s all anyone needed in a good addiction, a little bit of the normal day gone. Bag in her hand until she was standing, more so, hips leaning against the edge of the granite countertop as her pale fingers reached into the bag, pulling out all the tacos. There were quite a few, but the girl could eat, and if she wanted him to have nothing to eat, she would. She was mildly vindictive like that, liked taking things she knew  someone else wanted. It was a problem. 

She looked over at him with the corner of her mouth pulled up to the side, teeth showing ever so slightly, “Oh, if you think that’s sweet, I can make you catch diabetes.” Sometimes the girl knew what to say, other times-- things like that fell out. She looked at him for a second too long as he moved after her to the kitchen, dark circles under her eyes still, looking generally tired, but even a tired Scarlett was immaculately put together. Shoulder of her oversized t-shirt constantly slipping from her shoulder, sweatpants tied on with the strings in an oversized bow-- it was a look. One she’d never be caught in public with, hell, if she’d of known he was coming over, she would have put on something else, but here she was, make up smudged, and clothes on that looked like she stole them from a giant. 

“I guess--” She put heavy emphasis on the guess, “you can have some.” She looked at the loot, it was too much, even if she did eat it all, she’d probably explode, and besides that, it’d be too many calories, and that wasn’t a life that she lived. “So what?” She said, moving the food to the side, popping up onto he counter, grabbing one, “you got tacos on command?” She asked, “not out doing a hot blonde name Brittney?” She shot him a wink, playfully shoving him before unwrapping the taco, taking a bite, half the contents falling out of it, and into her catch hand, “Jesus, how are these always so good?” 

“Well we aren’t in a burn ban, so you can burn whatever you want.” She paused, “but isn’t it a little sacrilegious to burn a book?” Thinking back to all of the things she’d ever done, she couldn’t think of a time she’d ever burnt a book, “I mean, just any book, isn’t burning books inherently wrong somehow?” 

“That’s not luck!” The girl said in a breathy almost yell. It wasn’t loud, but it was obvious that she was annoyed. “It’s literally genetics, DNA, no way it’s luck. It’s not luck that my dad married my mom and I popped out. It’s not luck that he worked his ass off and decided to hold a little back for his wife and children. It’s certainly not luck that they pushed me to be everything I never wanted to be, it’s not luck that i studied my ass off at school, it’s not luck that I got a scholarship to university. None of that is luck. There is no luck involved, luck isn’t fucking real. It’s a coping mechanism that people use to put blame on when things don’t go their way, or they do but they’re too spineless to take credit.” The long winded verbal explosion done, and the girl took a long sigh, “I’m not lucky.” She said again, still hating the very idea of luck. Take the blame or the credit, jesus, sometimes she hated people. “orange juice is disgusting.”